“Good morning, Blue Cove! I’m Liz Cable,” the feminine-voiced chatbot cheerfully announced over the intercom.

“And I’m Colt Page,” her partner chimed in.

“It’s a quiet day here on the southern coast,” Liz continued. “Coming up next on the five are your local weather conditions, sponsored by Bitplayer Technologies, the global leader in reality-based solutions ...”

As the anchor chattered about five-day highs and lows, I sat in the food court, waiting for the team doc and the new employee to arrive. The tray by my elbow was draped with a dirty cloth napkin and littered with crumbs. I sipped the IR-Ban Café iced tea sloshing in my plastic tumbler, vegging out on Liz’s smooth voice. My fingers fiddled with a zipper in the sleeve of my gray jumpsuit. The nurse-bot next to me hunkered down on its treads, its green optics dimming as it entered power-saving mode. It was fifteen minutes past the meeting time; good thing I wasn’t in any rush.

The anchor’s weather forecast soon gave way to soothing, reverberating waves of piano and guitar, and my head began to nod. Just as I was drifting off, I heard the nearby lift open. Looking up, I spotted a young chap rushing over. His clothes were uncomfortably loud: a baggy blue and purple T-shirt smothered in geometric shapes, black trackies with hanzi, smileys, and random English words running down the sides, and reflective gray runners. His Bitplayer Technologies badge flapped wildly over his chest as he ran. A black-and-white backpack dangled perilously from his shoulder. Water dripped from his tousled brown hair.

I remembered his face from the orientation meeting yesterday: the new intern, Damon Jefferson. Fortunately for him, there’s no enforceable dress code beyond covering up.

“G’day, Miss Roberts,” the guy wheezed, as the nurse-bot stirred to life. “Sorry I’m late.”

At least he knew my name. “No worries, Damon.” Trying not to stare at the garish riot on his torso, I stood and extended a hand. Damon shook it. “You hungry? You want brekkie first? Or a cuppa?”

“No, it’s fine. I just, um, overslept.” He sheepishly ran a hand through his damp hair.

“Really don’t want a yummo cinnablock, then? Your loss.” We chuckled. “Hey, did you see Doctor Dade on your way here?”

“Um, no. Should I have looked?”

Dr. Dade was always prompt and would have called in by now. Twenty minutes seemed long enough. I reached for the walkie-talkie holstered at my hip and switched to channel 8, exclusively used for Bitplayer employees. “Doctor Dade? Are you there? Doc?” The handset hissed softly. “Forget it. We’ll check on him after rounds.”

I rattled the melting ice cubes in my cup, glancing past the big decorative water fountain and synthetic green-and-brown palm trees to the towering annex that housed our customers. As of yesterday, there were 268 people on the five floors under my team’s watch. Despite seeming like a large census, it was manageable so long as there weren’t too many overnight issues to settle. Slurping up the ice, I hooked the empty tumbler into a loop in the waistband of my cargo pants. The tray and its contents went on top of a nearby collection bin. Damon and the nurse-bot followed me to the lift.

Even though we had a habit of meeting by the IR-Ban Café on ground level and going up during rounds, I personally enjoyed doing the opposite: starting from the top and working my way down with gravity. It always seemed less stressful that way. And since Dr. Dade wasn’t here, that’s what we did.

I pushed the button for Twenty. Damon and the bot crowded next to me as the doors slid shut. We were silent as the lift zipped toward our destination, accompanied only by Liz the chatbot’s charming voice: “News, weather, entertainment, and music to fit your lifestyle: all this and more all day, every day on the five ...” Damon examined his reflection in the shiny metal wall of the elevator, trying in vain to smooth out his hair.

The lift opened, and we entered the Bitplayer premises. Floor Twenty, like most of the other levels, had been totally scoured of conference rooms and cubicles. The expansive, open-concept space was packed with clusters of womb-like, ivory-colored pods. Delicate circuitry etched their surfaces, glowing blue if the units were occupied and running normally, darkened if not. Pipes jutted out from their bases, finger-like, into the floor. For easier maintenance, the stale gray carpet that used to cover the floors had been ripped out as well, exposing the same scuffed turquoise-and-peach tile pattern also used out in the main concourse of Blue Cove Arco.

People wrapped in form-fitting white IR suits and helms were gently suspended in clear, viscous, pressure-alleviating gel inside the pods, their minds adrift. Tubes and catheters stuck out of various ports in their suits. At the head of each pod was a small kiosk, with a pair of POV monitors hanging from above where we could see into our customers’ mindspace.

The languid shuffle of an old electronic song began to drift from the overhead speakers. As the distorted, druggy warble of the long-dead female singer looped through the air, Bitplayer drones floated and rolled serenely amongst the pods, checking on clients.

And so, our workday began.

I led Damon and the nurse-bot to an occupied pod along the far wall and tapped a few buttons on the kiosk keyboard. My eyes swept over the data scrolling onto the screen. This unit contained Andy Roberts, my younger brother, who’d been in IR ever since he got caught in the blast radius of an N-point.

Andy was thin, almost gaunt, a common look among long-term IR users dependent on reprocessed nutrition from a stomach tube. Through the clear visor of his helm, I could see his unkempt, scraggly hairline and pale, dry skin. His eyes moved rapidly underneath closed lids. Andy’s soft breathing rustled his thick mustache and beard.

I looked up at the POVs. The screens were old, the view intermittently broken up by flickering scanlines and clouds of static. There, Andy was clean-shaven, his brown hair combed neatly to the side, wearing a comfortable red button-up jumper over a white polo shirt, white shorts, and long white tube socks with blue stripes. He lay belly-down on his enormous bed, covers and fleece jarmies piled by his feet. He was still quite thin and gangly, but defo healthier looking, closer in appearance to my hazy childhood recollections than the man currently resting in the pod.

Andy’s bedroom was quite airy. The walls were painted a few complementary shades of blue. A white fan whirled from the vaulted ceiling. Bright light streamed through the windows, the gentle, rolling waves of an expanse of azure ocean visible below and beyond. A large wooden desk and bookcase stood opposite Andy’s king-sized bed. Stacks of mags--TIME, SPIN, MAD--spilled across the desk and onto the cream-toned carpet.

Andy was doodling in a black wire-bound notebook, an assortment of colored pencils scattered on the bedsheet. He was partway through yet another portrait, a realistic one full of splashy colors and sharp contrasts. He’d always had a talent for art, even as a kid. I stared at the sketch for a while, thinking it looked familiar--

“Miss Roberts, are you alright?” Damon asked, concern on his face.

“Dāngrán, dāngrán. Everything’s fine.” I gestured at the pod. “This is my little brother, Andy. I brought him here from Brissy a long time ago.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” He looked at the floor, unsure of how to reply. “I ... guess it seems like he’s doing okay.”

“I reckon.”

“So, does everyone live in the same world or something?” Damon pointed up at the POVs. “It looks just like the one they had where I came from. All bright and shiny.”

The ideal IR construct was designed to be harmonious, all the harsh edges sanded off, facilitating its original intended use as mental health therapy years ago. By far the most popular virtual environment was the classic metropolis like the one we used here at Blue Cove. It was filled with glossy suburban neighborhoods of formulaic two-story homes with backyard pools; mini malls filled with restaurants, salons, clothing boutiques, arcades, and movie theaters; and golf courses, tennis courts, and parks sprawling across any undeveloped space. Way in the outback were rustic fields of green grass, beautiful multicolored flowers, and majestic leafy trees. Deep within the city, enormous, towering blocks of downtown skyscrapers overlooked a vibrant, neon-soaked, consumerist nightlife. In keeping with the optimistic milieu, Bitplayer soundtracked our offices, and the whole arco, with evocative tunes like the slice of sunny Japanese shiti poppu that was now playing. I wasn’t surprised to hear that our setup was being used elsewhere.

“Is that right? Where are you from, mate?”

“I came with the refugees from Melbs. A few of us finally made it here a few days ago.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember the announcement on the five.”

“No one can stop the big fire.” His face briefly soured. “Anyway, that’s a nice drawing. Kind of looks like you.” Damon nodded at the POVs.

I followed his gaze upward. A scowling, hazel-eyed girl in a maroon hoodie was taking shape in the sketch. She wore several spiky golden ear studs and a nasal piercing, fashion statements I hadn’t made since high school, but Andy had accurately drawn my choppy dark-red bob cut. I reflexively touched my hair; IR users were believed to subconsciously absorb cues from meatspace, using real-world elements to add bits of familiarity to the scaffolding of their digital realm. That was a big reason the playlists were packed with popular, well-known songs, so customers transitioned into IR more easily.

“Yeah, kind of.” My gaze shifted to the nurse-bot, who we simply called Nurse. “Nurse, everything’s blue here. Anyone in particular you want us to see?”

Nurse beeped. “No overnight alarms reported with any of the customers on Twenty,” it said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Then let’s go downstairs. I’ll meet you two at the lift.” As Damon and the nurse-bot headed to the elevator, I glanced at the POVs again. Andy had just finished the drawing and was scribbling something underneath. I squinted, slowly muttering the words under my breath: “In memoriam, Candace, March nineteen-eighty-eight ...?” Andy looked at the drawing for a long moment before turning the page to start a new sketch.

Memoriam? I’d dragged my unconscious brother for who knew how many clicks after the N-point had gone off, begged our way past the granite-faced guards at the Brissy checkpoint, and got him into the queue for a pod. He’d almost died, not me. Weird how Andy’s mind chose to remember me.

And why 1988? I didn’t know the current year, but we were long past 1988. I reset the kiosk to its default vital sign display and rejoined my team.

“There must be so much to do to keep the system online twenty-four hours a day,” Damon exclaimed as we entered the lift. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t do anything. They do.” I jerked a thumb at the nurse-bot. Damon rewarded me with a baffled look. “I guess you were nodding off at orientation.”

The intern laughed in embarrassment. “Aigoo, I was just psyched to get an assignment.”

We exited the lift on Nineteen. “The drones handle almost everything here, even strategy. Nothing personal, but the assignment you got here wasn’t because of any skill set you might’ve had. It was to keep you from going bonkers staring at the walls.” As we looked around, I spotted a single station glowing a dull orange. I motioned to the team to follow me there.

“Do they all interact with each other?” Damon asked, keeping pace beside me. “The customers, I mean.”

“Yeah, most of them run on the same instance here at Blue Cove. Only the Bitplayer big knobs got their own bespoke environments. They all wanted the chance to lead their own company free of interference when they decided to take the plunge.”

“How about with other arcos?”

“Bù zhīdùo.” I shrugged. “No way for the arcos to talk since the sats all got taken out.”

“So where do all the people in IR come from? Especially the blokes living in a universe of one?”

“Chatbots. Heaps of them.”

Moving to podside, we saw that the guy was clenched up, occasionally twitching an arm or leg. Nurse pulled up his customer record. “Digital dissonance started last night,” it said. “What do you want to do?”

I skimmed the metadata on the occupant, Felipe Ricardo. He was evidently born in 1988, but that meant little in IR. The bloke looked like he was in his late fifties or early sixties, but long immersions made anyone look unnaturally old in meatspace. The avatar, on the other hand, was maybe a college frosh. The POVs showed him sitting on a green park bench, his head in his hands, shaking uncontrollably. I wondered if the guy finally realized that fifty wasn’t the new twenty. “What would happen if we stepped in?” I asked Nurse.

“Central predicts a sixty percent chance of his symptoms worsening with direct intervention, Candace,” Nurse replied. “But as a nurse-bot, I’m forbidden from making the call as long as humans are present to do so.”

Unfortunately, I had no medical training, just long stretches of observing Dr. Dade at work. I sighed in exasperation, resting my hands on the cool, smooth surface of the pod as I inspected our customer. Felipe’s eyes were open but unfocused. His hands hovered in front of his chest, his palms facing inward, gel dripping off his fingers. Hearing some mumbling, I leaned over but couldn’t make out the words.

“Can you hear what he’s saying?” I asked the others.

“No,” they replied in unison.

I recalled the closed caption function built into every kiosk and began searching for it in the settings menu. However, just as I found it, on the POVs the man leaned back and cursed.

“Is he alright?” Damon asked. I shushed him.

“Does no one speak regular English around here?” Felipe shouted. “Where did all the Chinese come from? And the fucking cartoons--”

“Is he talking about Chimoji?” the intern asked, puzzled.

“Maybe. Weird, that’s not coded into the environment.”

“--and how does no one know what a dollar bill is?” Felipe ranted. “What the hell is ubic supposed--”

“Ubic? Our ubic?” Damon grew more confused. “He remembers the universal cash stipend?”

I frowned. “Try searching the records. When did he immerse?”

The nurse-bot made room for Damon. The intern flicked his fingers across the kiosk, cycling through Felipe’s file. A moment later, he stiffened his fingers, freezing the view, and squinted at the immersion date. “He’s been around since the--damn, how long has it been? A bloody long time, I think? How did he--”

“Yeah, he might be having FFs now. Flashforwards,” I interrupted. “IR is chock-a-block with downclockers. On top of that, Bitplayer intermittently recycles the immersive environment at night to save processing power and space. It’s seamless, going from present to past and back again, but sometimes people feel unstuck in time.”

“Sounds more confusing than anything. What if everyone downclocks at different rates?”

“It only affects their own ‘aging’ process.” I threw up air quotes around the word aging. “Basically, how they look and feel. The rest of the world itself moves along at the same cadence.”

“I don’t get it.”

I sighed. “If your subconscious absorbs too much from meatspace, there’s a problem. If you remember things from meatspace that the Bitplayer environment was supposed to block out, there’s a problem. Because you’re reconciling two distinct, yet simultaneous, frames of reference. The risk increases the longer people stay in IR. And forget about resetting the chronometer. Doesn’t work.” I rested my hands on my hips. “Brain can’t handle FFs. Reality gets all buggered up.”

Bitplayer’s app worked in part by burying people’s uncomfortable memories underneath layers and layers of coding flotsam. Pleasant distractions made it easier for people to accept the immersion. The problem was that it was temporary. Leaving IR unloaded all those digital barriers, causing a nasty rebound effect. The sudden flood of negativity often overwhelmed people’s emotional defenses. Customers hated the sensation of all that pain and trauma pouring back into their minds, now amplified and more toxic than ever. It was easier to stay than to go.

“Then what can we do? The rules said we can’t just talk to the guy.”

For good reason. Directly communicating with someone while in their mindspace greatly upped the chance of breaking suspension of disbelief--BSOD.

“Not much. Yank him or leave him. Doctor Dade might’ve been able to sort him out if we got him out of there, but ...” I stared into the distance. “Look, I’ve never had to make this call before, and I wasn’t planning on starting today. I’ve seen what happens when it fails. You can’t untangle our reality from theirs once they start mixing.”

As I rocked on my heels, the PA system crackled. Ringing tones began to cascade out of the speakers, a slow-motion waterfall of icy synthesized melodies. A woman began whispering Korean in a cool, hypnotic voice, like some kind of cybernetic incantation. A strange, disconcerting chill rippled through my body.

That was it. Time to move on.

“Nurse, just get one of the other bots to monitor the poor bastard,” I said, rubbing my arms and shoulders to get rid of the creepy-crawly sensation. “See if he wakes up spontaneously--or crashes.”

“Of course, Candace.”

As I motioned toward the lift, the intern cleared his throat. “Is it okay for us to, uh, be rounding so quickly?” I turned, raising an eyebrow. Flushing, he continued nervously, “I don’t mind spending a little more time, uh, getting to know the customers.”

“With Doctor Dade, we visited every single person, mate. It took almost the whole day. Five days a week. I never thought it was the best use of our time, especially since the nurse-bots did all the hard yakka.”

“But wouldn’t you want your doc to see their patients every day?”

“They aren’t all patients. Only some of the originals used IR for psych trauma. Most of the survivors just lacked outlets for all their pent-up emotions. And the N-points made offworld escape impossible. Everyone was stuck.” I gestured at the intern. “You know the slogan for Bitplayer, right? ‘Digital bliss, as real as you want it to be.’”

We took the lift down to Eighteen. Just outside the doors, we encountered a lady in an orange pod. We again ordered another nurse-bot to stand watch. Nurse then drew our attention to several drones crowded around a red pod tucked near the emergency stairwell a short distance away. We walked over but stood back a respectful distance.

“Who was it?” I asked Nurse.

Nurse paused. “Manu Reddy.” Two humanoid bots, the types with four articulating upper limbs, carefully disconnected the last cable and pulled the man’s thin body from the pod with a squelch. Gel sloshed onto the floor. “Kiosk reported cerebellar hemorrhagic stroke.”

“I saw on an old box show that we used to be able to treat stroke,” the intern offered, scratching his head. “What happened?”

“No specialists, facilities, or equipment,” I replied, watching a small, dome-shaped cleaner bot struggle to vacuum up the gel on the ground. “Doctor Dade’s the only doc left in all of Blue Cove, and even he doesn’t know that stuff.”

“Zhēn de ma?” he asked.

“Defo. I heard Bondi had a couple back in the day, but even if Bondi still exists, it’s too far to travel. All we can do is watch.”

The bots gently placed Manu, still in his IR suit, into a black body bag on a gurney for transport. As they zipped the bag closed, a woman’s wistful voice crackled from the speakers. The voice sung a mixture of Japanese and English, backed by a subtle beat and melancholy horn and string section. Despite knowing only a few common phrases in Japanese, I could practically feel the tragedy in my very bones. Aigoo, Liz and Colt were uncannily good at curating playlists.

“Let’s go,” I said quietly.

Seventeen housed the resource and recycling center and the dense blocks of mainframes powering the alt-realities of our customers. There were no pods here. A couple of gray, barrel-bodied supervisory bots roved around the hallway, LEDs blinking on their heads, ignoring us. After we gave Damon a brief tour, we reentered the lift and headed down to Sixteen.

Way in a back corner was a single green pod, signifying a newly activated customer. Two articulator bots were packing up equipment nearby. Strange--new users were incredibly rare nowadays. As one of only a handful of humans in this Bitplayer branch, not to mention the whole arco, normally I was told well in advance if we had a new arrival. We headed over to investigate.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Dr. Dade there.

Our newest customer floated gently inside the green pod, his face slack with relief. Nurse communicated with the other drones in a back-and-forth of beeping and chirping.

“Saul,” Nurse said, referring to our former doc, “told my colleagues here not to disclose anything to us until we started our rounds. He didn’t want you to try to stop him.”

“Clearly,” I muttered.

“Mwongmi!” Damon exclaimed, looking at each of us in turn.

“The supervisors searched his flat,” Nurse continued. “He’d made the decision to try to reconnect with his ex-wife. Everything was packed up, stamped for recycling and redistribution.”

“His ex-wife’s here?”

“Yes, on Eighteen.”

“Did you know that?” Damon asked me.

“No. People’s personal histories aren’t my business.” I ushered Damon away from the pod, leaving Nurse to receive handoff from the other bots. “Hmph. Was he really just going through the motions this whole time? I’ve already got plenty on my plate worrying about my little brother.”

“Seems bloody dramatic to suddenly just decide to take a one-way trip to IR.”

“Like taking a permanent sickie,” I replied soberly, nodding. “Not the first time that’s happened around here.”

Damon was quiet for a while. Then, he asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Bù zhīdùo.” I shrugged. “I’ve been hiding out in Blue Cove with my brother since the war. Several years? A decade?” Dates became irrelevant when downclocking stretched real seconds into virtual years. Computers maintained customers’ birthdates and immersion dates more out of custom than necessity. The power of IR aside, real-time still only went one way; no one was around to reflect on the casualties of history. “Any rellies, Damon?”

“My older brother was drafted and shipped OS to help the Yanks. Then some basketcase set off an N-point off San Diego ...” Damon trailed off, murmuring to himself and staring into space.

We stood there, lost in our own worlds. I barely even registered Nurse as it continued conversing with its robotic cohorts. At some point, a pulsating dance track revved up, the brassy female Japanese vocalist backed by a swinging chorus. The upbeat music broke the somber mood; shaking his head as though waking up, Damon changed the subject. “Hey, I got another question. They played the same music over the Melbs PA system, too. What’s it called again? Citybeat? Neon pop?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t remember this being so popular before--you know.”

“You probably just never noticed. It’s like wallpaper, just there sometimes.”

“Maybe.”

“Bitplayer runs the majority of the arcos, and most pods run on eighties templates. The lab coats back in the day thought it was possible for people in IR to absorb influences from our world during waking periods. Hence, all this nostalgic old-timey music.”

“This stuff’s ace, but it sounds so ancient you can hear the vinyl crackle.”

I chuckled. “We’re probably overdue for a revival anyway.”

“Hmm.” He closed his eyes, swaying slightly to the driving beat. “Well, it does feel right. Somehow.”

I called over to our nurse-bot. “Hey, we’re ready to head down to Fifteen.”

Nurse trundled over, and we took the lift down one last flight. Fifteen was entirely blue, nothing new to see. A few other nurse-bots roamed the aisles, periodically stopping to check on an immersion. The sparkling dance cut faded with a crackle of vinyl. Soon, the grainy, wailing echo of a single saxophone cut through the air.

In the lonely emptiness between the notes, I heard the thrum of electricity coursing through the pods. The low burble of coolant and gel cycling through the pipes underneath the floor. The comforting whir of air conditioning running day and night. I stopped, absorbing the stillness of the dreamers, the quiet, purposeful activity of the machines keeping watch. It felt like the very air was vibrating with a peculiar intensity, prickling the hairs on my scalp and forearms. All that energy keeping alive our customers’ mass hallucination of decades lost—

“Hey, Miss Roberts?” Damon was waving a hand in my face.

“I’m here.” Blinking, I glanced back at the still-open lift and sighed deeply. “Just tired.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? I feel like I wasn’t very useful today.”

“No, you did fine, mate. We’re done for today.”

“Zhēn de ma?” He looked surprised. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” I smiled, spreading my hands. “Did they set up your local ubic account yet? Go drop some ubic at the arcade or something. It’s bloody retro. You might like it.”

“Sounds rad.” He turned to leave, then paused. “Before that, I think I want to pick up a slab at the bottle-o downstairs. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks. You know the frothies are all bogus, right?”

“Still better than what we had in Melbs, which was nothing.”

I shrugged. “Right on. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After the intern left, I turned to Nurse. “As a reminder,” the robot said solicitously, folding its arms over its round white chassis, “you’re the ranking employee here, now that Saul has joined the immersed.”

“Mwongmi?” I laughed sarcastically. “That can’t be true. What’s his name—uh, Phil Webb? Doctor Dade’s boss?”

“Phil passed away a while ago.”

“What? Why didn’t you say something?”

“It didn’t affect you. It affected Saul.”

“Yeah.” I dragged out the syllable. “Okay, how about that lady with the shoulder pads? Sue Lazor?”

“Sue quit. She runs the used bookstore on Two now.”

“Daebak.” I rolled my eyes.

“The only other active human employees are Damon and Katie Ping.”

I raised my brows. “Katie? Hmph. Almost forgot about her.” The junior tech covered floors Eleven through Fourteen with her own nurse-bot. Her team also had a doc at one point, but she plugged herself into a pod way back. From what I could tell, Katie spent most of her free time trying on the same clothes over and over at the resurrected Contempo Casuals on Three or jogging in long, slow loops around Blue Cove’s ground floor. We hardly talked; I had no idea how many of the customers under her watch were still alive. Reckon that explained my cluelessness about Phil and Sue.

Nurse tilted its head at me. “Candace?”

I took my time answering. “Will you need me this afternoon, Nurse? If not, I’ll plan to take off early.”

The robot blinked its optics. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, Nurse.”

“It’s always difficult when we lose an employee.” The robot unsuccessfully tried to soften its tone, its vocabulary conspicuously changing. “I just wanted to say that we value your contributions to the team and appreciate your help with our customers. Please think twice before making an irreversible decision.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “I said I’m fine.”

Nurse paused for such a long time, I almost thought it had crashed. “Then may we check on you later by walkie-talkie?”

I shrugged. “If you must.”

“We’ll let you know if either of our two orange customers need attention.”

“Sure.”

“Then have a wonderful day, Candace.” Nurse wheeled around and rolled back to the elevator bank.

Moodily, I returned to the lift, pushing the button for Four once inside. The elevator music, a saccharine melody sung almost entirely in Mandarin, perked along as the lift descended. When the doors reopened, I absently wandered out and down the deserted hallway to my flat.

I fished the house key out of my pants pocket and unlocked the door. Inside the living room, I kicked off my boots and went straight to the fridge for a coldie. As I pushed bottled water and plastic tubs of bland leftovers aside, I heard a rustling sound nearby.

I stood up, shutting the fridge. There it was again, that rustling. It sounded like it was coming from my bedroom.

There were maybe a few dozen people still walking around Blue Cove. I’m the only resident on the entire floor. Who would dare break into my place? Damon? Did the dipstick get lost on his way to the arcade?

Padding over to the bedroom, I put my ear to the crack in the doorway. Someone was shuffling around inside, the floor creaking softly with each step. There was a muffled thump, and the bedframe squeaked. My stomach churned.

Backing up, I took a deep breath and charged forward, kicking open the door with a loud crash. “Hey, who the fuck—”

I stopped, dumbfounded.

My brother Andy, in his preppy jumper and shorts outfit, sat on the edge of my bed. He didn’t look up or even acknowledge me, though, continuing to doodle in his sketchbook like I wasn’t there.

It was like seeing a ghost.

Screaming, I fled the room and slammed the door shut, pulling the knob closed with my hand. Heart pounding, I waited for a few moments until no more sounds came from inside. No one tugged on the doorknob.

I carefully tapped the door open with my toe, my fists up in case my brother—or whoever that was—came rushing out. My eyes surveyed the room.

Empty.

Puzzled, I barged into the master bathroom and walk-in closet, even got on my hands and knees to check the vent next to the bed. No one. Was I hallucinating?

Frowning, I scrambled for an explanation. Long-term Bitplayer customers were prone to contaminating their fabricated environment with real-world artifacts, with literally ineffable, often unpleasant consequences. But why was I the one seeing Andy here, in meatspace? I’d never even tried IR; someone had to watch over my immersed brother. It was impossible—

I fumbled for the walkie-talkie. “Nurse? Are you there?”

“Yes, Candace,” came the fuzzy reply. “How can I help you?”

“Is my brother still plugged in? Andy Roberts, on Floor Twenty?”

“Let me check.” There was a brief pause. “Yes, he’s here, doing fine. It appears that he’s in his virtual bedroom. Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s alright. Sorry to bother you.”

“No worries, Candace.” The connection dropped in a burst of static.

I shut off the two-way and was about to toss it away when I noticed the faded brown shoebox lying open on my desk. It was the container where I kept a few family pics, spare ubic cards, salvaged trinkets, and mementos from before the war.

I picked up the box. Underneath it, a photo had been placed, one of those old instant glossies straight out of the cam. I recognized it right away: my brother and me, back in high school, goofing around on old playground swings in a park while red and orange leaves swirled along the well-worn asphalt. My long ponytail whirled as I mugged for the camera. Andy was looking at me, his runners in the air, an equally large grin splashed across his face. He was always the upbeat sort, looking on the bright side of things.

I flipped the photo over. Someone had written 11/15/87 in blue ink in the lower right corner. Was that when it was taken? It seemed like ages ago. Holding the pic in my fingers, I sat on my bed, thinking. 1988. 1987. 1988. 1987 ... Absently, I ran a hand through my hair—and stopped. Something was off.

Dropping the photo, I raced to the bathroom and flipped the light switch. My gaze landed on the mirror; I recoiled in confusion. My cropped hair was now flowing well past my shoulders, held together with a glittery red scrunchie that I hadn’t seen in forever.

As a surge of panic and confusion welled in my chest, someone rapped loudly on the bedroom door outside. Carefully, I poked my head into the room. The door opened—and unbelievably, my brother walked in, still wearing his jumper, polo shirt, and shorts ensemble. His sketchbook dangled from his hand.

“Hey, you’re finally back,” Andy said, grinning, like he’d just been expecting me this whole time. “Took you long enough. I’m so jonesing for Cinnabon right now. And then I want to check out K.B. Toys afterwards. There’s a new—”

“Who are—how—what do you mean?” A thousand questions clamored for attention on my tongue.

Andy must have seen my perplexed look. “Cinnabon? K.B. Toys? Hello?” He put his hands on his hips, laughing. “How can you not know them? Are you for real, sis?”

“Yeah, duh, I know what—ugh, Andy, where are we? How are you even here?” I threw up my hands.

“That’s a stupid question, sis.” He laughed. “I’ve been here the whole time. You’re the newbie.”

“Here? This is my place!” I stomped up to my brother. “You’ve been dreaming in a bloody pod for years!”

“A pod?” His brow furrowed.

“Āiyā! Immersive reality, Andy!” I grabbed my brother’s shoulders and shook them hard. “Have you forgotten IR? It was around long before I put you inside the pod—”

“Easy on, easy on.” Andy dropped his sketchbook and held his hands up, palms out. “You’re talking like you’re from another world.”

“I—what?” I sputtered. “Andy, what are you—”

“Hey, sis, it’s okay.” Andy reached out and embraced me in a bear hug, his chin resting on top of my head. I let my arms dangle at my sides. I was so confused. “You’ve always been the nerd of the family. All that fancy techie stuff, I never got it.”

“Oh, so you do remember,” I said, my voice muffled in his shirt.

“I’m not sure what you think I should be remembering,” he offered. “But I defo remember what my own bedroom looks like. We’re standing in it.”

I pulled back and looked around. Mouth agape, my head spun, trying to grasp what just happened. While we were talking, the place had changed. Somehow, I’d been transported to the bedroom I’d seen on Andy’s POVs on Twenty, complete with the fan spinning quietly above our heads.

“—and I know what a computer is,” Andy was saying. “But, uh, immersive reality? That’s bonkers. We don’t have talking robots and time travel either, in case you’re wondering.”

“This isn’t funny, Andy.” I shook my head. “IR was invented long before the war!”

“Okay, you realize it’s not twenty-eighty-seven, it’s nineteen-eighty-seven, right?” he asked playfully. “November fifteenth, to be exact. Sunday.”

No one remembers exact dates anymore—especially that one. “How do you know that?” I asked, wary.

Andy’s smile faded. “Uh, everyone knows that.” His tone grew serious. “Hey, Candace, how do you not know—”

“No, no, no. The pod was supposed to—you weren’t supposed to remem—” I stared up at him forlornly. “No, I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t.”

“Oh, sis. Look, I know it’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for everybody.” Andy swallowed, looking at the floor. He was quiet for a while. “I know they’ve been saying my condition’s terminal, but I’ve still got several good months left, maybe a year?”

You weren’t supposed to remember anything about that, I thought. You were supposed to have all the time in the world. That bloody N-point just made the decision easier—

“Terminal?” I whispered. “No, don’t say that. Please.”

He looked at me strangely for a long moment. “Yeah, sis, you know I’ve got—I mean, you were there when—” Andy stopped.

I was trying not to sob, blinking back tears and biting my lip until it hurt. Aigoo, he was supposed to forget it all when he went into the pod. Why was he remembering everything now? All these fucking memories! I didn’t want him to—I didn’t want to—

“Hey, don’t be upset. I’m just happy you’re here now.” Andy reached out and hugged me again, as I sniffled and quivered like jelly. “Let’s just get some fresh air, okay? Cinnabon afterwards. We got to think positive, alright?”

“Yeah,” I said thickly. “Okay.”

“Let’s book.” Andy turned and went out the bedroom door. I followed him through the living room—his, not mine—and out the entrance. Andy’s place was also in a high-rise; we took a lift several floors down, entered a marble-floored lobby playing instrumental jazz, then through the glass double doors and out.

We were standing before a little park, full of playground equipment: seesaws, monkey bars, slides, balance beams, even one of those big plastic toy castles with rounded edges and rooms where you could hide. Gentle sunlight streamed onto our faces. A cool breeze wafted, leaves whirling in little eddies along the ground and strands of hair blowing in my eyes. A couple of dirt paths snaked their way out of the playground into tall groves of oak and maple trees. I looked back at Andy’s tall apartment complex, painted coral pink and light blue and decorated with murals of dolphins, clams, and other sea life. Beyond the tree line, Blue Cove Arco was nowhere to be seen. We were in woop woop country now.

Just as amazing was how everything was so crystal clear. The colors were so bright, the details so crisp, it was like seeing the world in hi-def. I rubbed my eyes in shock.

“Hey, sis, you think we’re too big for the swings?” Andy laughed, jogging over to the swing set. He flopped down on one of the plastic seats; the apparatus creaked and sagged a bit, but the steel chains held firm. Scooting his feet forward, he quickly gained momentum and began soaring higher and higher, a grin plastered on his face.

I skirted around him and sat down in the seat to his right. Despite all my efforts to bury his problems and worries, everything just came rushing back—and now they’d swept me away with them. Not my brother, though. He looked so happy, so carefree, kicking his legs and swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

I gently rocked on the swing. I reckoned I should try to let go of my own worries for a while, one more time. The solemn splendor of the old Blue Cove arco was gone now, replaced by a beautiful new vista. Nothing could bother me here. I could spend all the quality time I wanted with my beloved little brother in a perfectly peaceful little beachside park, underneath a perfectly blue sky, undisturbed, uninterrupted.

“Hey, why are you just sitting there?” Andy shouted as he rushed by.

Grinning, I pushed my feet back, propelling myself forward until I was soaring alongside Andy. We giggled, we joked, we waxed poetic about Cinnabon and K.B. Toys and every other fantastic place this new old world had to offer.

I didn’t care anymore. It really wouldn’t be so bad if we simply relived the rest of today forever.

I hope 1988 never comes around again.